This is a quote by
an American author, Anne Lamott-san[1]. When the wind isn't blowing and
things are calm, or in other words, on normal days, there are things that you
can't do without learning properly. When there's a storm, in times of
emergency or times when unforeseen things may happen, there are also things
that you learn.

This was sent in by
listener "If I had a pet, I'd like to name it Gonzales"-san.
(laughs) That's a long one! The message reads:

"Good morning.
The moment I heard this phrase, the things that came to mind were 'Nagi' (凪, calm), the role acted by Ohno
Satoshi in a stageplay and 'Arashi' (嵐, storm), the group that Ohno
Satoshi is in. Hehhh, so the things you learn in calm and in storm are
different, huh?"

I did do 'Nagi'
before! That was in 2008. In a play called 'Amatsukaze'. That was part of the
so-called 'Puu' series. I got to do stageplays then. That was the 4th one.
The character was called 'Nagi'.

Yeah. Man, that's
nostalgic. And the members all came to watch the play. I went to all of
theirs, too. Mm.

What was funny was
once when I acted together with TOKIO's Matsuoka-kun, the content was
fairly... There were some fairly difficult parts in it, for the lines. So it
was for 2 hours. And Sho-kun and MatsuJun or Nino - I've forgotten who but 3
of them came to watch it, as their schedules permitted.

So then, after it
ended, they came to our dressing room. And then everyone except Sho-kun was
like, "That was incredible, that performance had a lot of rapid-fire
dialogue, huh?" and were telling me about what they thought. And like,
Sho-kun came later and his eyes were all red. Then before I could say
anything, he said, "Sorry! I fell asleep!" m( _ _ )m (laughs).

Man, I was actually
kinda happy about that, actually. Rather than having an expression like,
"I wasn't sleeping!", that was very Sho-kun-like. His eyes were all
red and all, so you could instantly tell. I ended up laughing. But well, the
fact that they came to watch made me happy. Mm.

For me, like
MatsuJun's stageplay and all, ever since long ago, when they did it several
years ago and when I went to watch, just having him appear was enough to make
me tear up. Like, a fellow member doing his best, having done the training
and all, having gone through all those struggles - and now he's standing up
there! Just the thought of that was enough to set me off crying. (laughs)

So the next time one
of the members are doing it, I'll probably cry. I'll be thinking, "I'll
do my best, too!" Yeah.

But well, there's
that, right? The things that members are doing. Like when they do solo jobs
and all. When they go and receive a whole new stimulus all over again. And
then the stuff the members bring back with them, it's like a whole new Arashi
is reborn.

That's how it's felt
all this time, in these 15 years!

Well, but the things
we've learnt are good things. So from now onwards, as well, I'd like to learn
all sorts of things! So all of you, as well.